


Mission

by Obsessiveangel



Series: Family [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen, Or angst, depending on how much pain you like i guess, ft chibi 4 year old ayato we all love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 13:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10664055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessiveangel/pseuds/Obsessiveangel
Summary: Ayato's thoughts about Touka before and during the Cochlea raid.





	Mission

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to my previous fic, Change, but it can also be read in isolation.

  _Mother was a beautiful woman. Father was a cheerful peace-lover.  
They were both weak idiots._

Ayato knows nothing about them aside from these things. He can never remember his mother. When he envisions her, he sees nothing. The person that surfaces in his mind is a generic woman, with no striking features that really stands out. If anything, she seems more like a mannequin. People say Touka looks a lot like her, but he doesn’t like it that way. He doesn’t like equating the two of them.

He remembers his father a little more. Only a little. He can’t recall his father’s voice but he knows it was soft and gentle. He can’t remember his father’s face but he knows it generally was happy and relaxed. He can’t remember his father’s appearance but he knows enough to vaguely envision a man with merely his face blurred out. He does remember rough moments with his father, like looking after a little bird, being excited to show his father when the bird recovered and that stupid promise they made.

Ayato doesn’t know much else about his parents, but he doesn’t really need to-- or so he believes. The truth is, there is only one person that really matters. The person who took care of him, who raised him, who fed, clothed and bathed him and protected him weren’t his dead father and mother.

To Ayato, nothing matters more to him than his sister.

* * *

 He hates it. He hates the guilt that claws away at him whenever he thought about her. Ayato knows he was wrong. There was no reason why he should have done things the way he did a few years ago. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t justify the brutality his sister went through at his hands-- the same hands she probably longs to hold and never let go.

He knows he was wrong and he’s sure that there’s no turning back. He can’t go back to her now. He can’t show his face to her. He has no right to be close to her. He’s a monster. She’s almost a human. Even if he wants to protect her, he can only do it from afar.

Ayato thinks it’s better this way. The distance that keeps growing eases the pain bit by bit. Sometimes, he can choose to pretend that happier memories never surface in his head and that when they do, there’s only distaste at the illusions that they were. He can choose to recall his sister’s love for him (and his for her) as a mere sign of weakness-- just like her kindness, her understanding nature, her gentle smiles despite her brash appearance, her reassuring words, her warm embraces and her promise to always protect him. He can convince himself that his sister went to school because she couldn’t care less about being a ghoul and being with him anymore, and not because she wanted the money promised to her so that she can provide him with a better life and not because she wanted to understand the world that both of them were living in.

It makes it less painful that she isn’t around. It helps him accept the things he’s done and the choices he’s made a little better.

 _Nonsense,_ a small voice in his head cracks up. _Nothing can make you seem less than the monster that you are._

Ayato hates that voice, because most of the time, it’s the voice of someone he knows, yet can’t recognize. It’s a little being in the back of his mind-- a tiny black demon that dances about and questions his every decision. When he left his sister-- _Why are you leaving that poor girl alone, after all she’s done to raise and protect you?_ When he joined Aogiri-- _Why are you throwing everything to become someone no one can be proud of?_ When he fought and ate his sister-- _What a monster. What are you doing to your own sister?_ It digs up his past and it asks him things he rather not consider. It gives him headaches after headaches, heartbreaks after heartbreaks-- a real demon, indeed.

She’s hurt him as well. So, it’s okay, right? It’s okay for things to be like that.

 _Nonsense,_  the voice repeats. 

He’s full of bullshit and he knows it. He doesn’t need some stupid bratty voice telling him that. But he leaves things as they are, even when he takes his leap of faith and finds himself at Death’s door. He longs to see his sister once more and to tell her the words she’s been dying to hear (and the words he’s been dying to tell her). But there is no way he can face her. He can’t find the courage to go up to her. He’s not strong enough; he’s too weak.

And Ayato decides that even if he dies, it doesn’t matter. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

* * *

 He sees the familiar pair of wings and he’s frozen. Ayato stares hopelessly, kneeling on the ground, as he sees his pair of saviours fight (to what-- protect him?). His eyes are fixed on her back and he’s completely at a loss for words. She only used to have one. That can’t be her. Yet, there can’t be anyone else, not when it feels like he’s staring at his own back.

He forces the thoughts out of his head, the emotions out of his heart, and his voice down his throat. Everything is in disarray and he’s stranded. He doesn’t know what he should do. Should he call her out on it and force himself into a direct confrontation? Should he feign ignorance and let her live with the belief that her brother either doesn’t care enough to notice it is her by his side or can’t be bothered to speak up? His mind spins and his head throbs. He forces himself back into the main mission; forces memories of Hinami up to remind him of the task at hand. This isn’t the time for him to worry about his sister. He has a more important mission, another important person to save. But--

“Take your masks off already. I already know.”

A lump rises in his throat, stiffening his jaws. His knees go weak from supporting his body. He slouches against the wall even more, somehow wondering if he could just fall through it and maybe disappear. He doesn’t even have a mask anymore. He can’t hide. He’s naked.

“Yomo Renji.” A pause. Just a moment of hesitation. And then, “Touka.”

It feels like her name is a bullet and by saying it, he’s pointing a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He feels a wave of indescribable emotions surge within him. He’s suddenly really exhausted; he just wants to go home.

 _Home?_ the voice in his head asks. _Home, where?_

“Ayato.”

He shivers. He realizes that he had forgotten how calming it was for him to hear her say his name; how her calling for him had always been the way out of the darkness he found himself trapped in.

“You don’t have to keep over-reaching. You’ve grown tall enough already.”

He’s looking down at her and he wonders just how short she is. Has she always been that short?

 _You won’t know. You’ve been away for too long,_ the voice dances about as it sings in his head, its words are darts stabbing into his heart.

“Rely on others for a change. Stop worrying about me. Go and protect Hinami.”

She’s trying to remind him of the reason he’s fighting for and he knows she’s right. But she doesn’t seem to realize something. His current mission might be Hinami. But he is always, constantly, on a different mission. Whenever he puts on his mask, goes to train and becomes stronger, his final goal is still one and the same.

Touka’s telling him that the mission is Hinami, but Ayato knows that Touka will always be his mission.

* * *

 Touka is beautiful. He has always known that. It’s something he’s never denied, not even in his bouts of anger when he’s cursing her weakness. But she’s never been more beautiful than she is now.

His body is burning and his eyesight is blurring. He can’t see much aside from what there is before him. He sees her-- in all her magnificence and beauty. Her wings blasts through the missiles and lasers he had fallen victim to. Her body skillfully dances from a spot to another, dodging and attacking. He can tell, just from her movements, that she is holding back. She can do so much more if she lunges out in the open, if she uses the whole space to her advantage-- she probably can eliminate every single investigator.

But she doesn’t and he knows why. The realization hurts him more that his wounds do. Watching her sickens him more that Death’s claws on him do.

She’s protecting him.                                                            

Just thinking about it is nauseating. It makes his head spin as he lies on the ground. He can feel bile rising in his throat. It might be the pain from being caught in an explosion, but he doubts it. She doesn’t have to do it. She shouldn’t. Scum like him doesn’t deserve to be protected by someone like her. Has she forgotten what he had done to her? Does it not matter to her that he had brutally beaten her, almost to death, before feasting on her? Even though they’re each other’s own flesh and blood-- especially since they are-- how could she ever forgive him? She should hate him. She should be disgusted by him. She should never want to have anything to do with him.

 _Her mission should be Hinami,_ the voice reminds him.

He catches her glimpse of her face. It’s only a little but it’s enough for him to realize that she’s serious about it. That she’s honestly upset and seething. That she’s going all out. He realizes that she wasn’t like that when anyone else had been hurt. She hadn’t gone to such an extent for anyone else-- not Hinami, not Yomo and not even Kaneki. But right now, she’s giving more than her all. She’s going too far for someone who hasn’t been fighting enough. She’s going to exert herself too much. She’s going to get hurt. She might die. 

He wants to tell her to stop. He wants to remind her that he’s not worth it. She should focus on the mission. The mission isn’t him. It’s Hinami. It’s Hinami and everyone else. It’s her. It’s everyone but him. 

Kaneki told him to take care of them. Ayato shouldn’t be the one being taken care of. 

 _Her mission should be Hinami,_ the voice says again. _Or is it?_

He wants it to shut up-- to shut the fuck up and disappear into complete nothingness and never ever show it’s squeaky, high-pitched voice again. The voice sounds like a fucking kid. What would it even know?  

 _Onee-chan’s mission is one and the same all throughout time,_ the voice sings. It’s probably prancing about on his battered body, marvelling at her beauty while distastefully sneering at his pathetic state. _You’ve always longed for this-- to be protected by her again._

He can’t find the strength to shake his head. He doesn’t really feel the pain from his injuries anymore. He simply continues watching her. One of his eyes has failed him. All he can do is squint with the other.

She falls to her knees and he can swear he senses a sob from her.

_Why does she do it?_

“Damn it... I still have to...”

_She has to stop. You’re not worth it._

He wants her to stop just as much. But he’s hopeless, stupid and extremely weak. His body feels too heavy for him to move. He can’t even lift his arms to reach out to her, much less move to stop her. His throat is parched, to the point he feels needles sticking through it. There’s no way he can speak either. His body doesn’t hurt anymore. He’s just too tired.

“Stop,” he wants to say. “Save yourself.”

_For once in her life, Onee-chan should save herself._

He’s staring at her trembling back and a sense of deja vu washes over him completely. _How many times have you seen that sight?_ the voice asks mockingly. Ayato’s unable to answer. He doesn’t know how many times. It’s impossible. He’s seen it too many times. Cowering behind her because he was too weak to fight, Ayato’s had the sight carved into his mind-- the beautiful sight of his sister’s wing, spreading out from behind her in its deadly grace.

 _She’s at her strongest when she fights to protect,_ the Voice says and Ayato agrees. She’s a complete weakling when she fought him on the roof, but he thinks she unbeatable now.

_She’s at her strongest when she fights to protect us._

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if it was obvious enough but the little voice in his head is supposed to be his younger self, who idolizes Touka and therefore is really disappointed in him. And I sidelined Ayahina's relationship far too much in it. I was just trying to make it seem like Touka is a little more important than Hinami but somehow I seem to get this feeling, from how I portrayed it, that Hinami's isn't all that important. Ahhhh. I don't like this. =w=


End file.
